Total disregard for Law and Order

By Rajitha Ratwatte

Why do most Sri Lankans display a total disregard for the law? By this I mean for rules and regulations that are in place to ensure safety of individuals and efficiency of the system. Is it because we have lived under a system where everything is “fixable”? From a simple bribe in cash at the base level to using ‘connections’ with powerful politicians.

Yes, so we do it at home but now we are doing it abroad as well. Is that some Lankans’ living abroad don’t realise that they are abroad or is it that some of us have never been taught to respect and obey the law? I fear it is the latter and now the consequences are resulting in an international reputation for being untrustworthy.

Take the recent KFC party in Melbourne. A bunch of Sri Lankan students! The number of such incidents in Aotearoa range from people taking student loans, completing their degrees and then going off to Australia and doing jobs with no intention of paying the student loans given to them by the NZ Government. This has led to changes in the law and unnecessary hardship to students. The range extends to people running businesses like motor repair shops issuing road worthiness certificates without even looking at the car. A person got checked by the police in a real old banger, in Wellington with a certificate issued in Auckland. That particular vehicle could never have made the 800KM journey from Wellington to Auckland even one way, let alone come back! Further inquiries found that the certificate had been issued by a garage run by a Sri Lankan and it had simply been mailed to Wellington with no one even having seen the car in Auckland.

Why do these cultures do this? Is it because they are treated like decent human beings in Aotearoa and they take advantage of that? We all know how we are treated by our Government departments, back home! Is it desperation as their businesses are failing? Is it because they don’t understand the importance of obeying the rules because they don’t care for anyone except themselves? Surely it has to be a culture-related thing? Did we build a civilization that was so effective that we were known as the granary of the East, with values like this? That is impossible! What happened in the interim?

On the other hand, we have people who drive like maniacs in their own countries get into an airplane and fly to a properly policed country and transform themselves into a model driver when driving away from that airport!

I have a first-hand story of a Petroleum Corporation oil bowser driver, who arrived at what used to be the LTTE check point on their so called “border” in the North of Sri Lanka. This was just after the “peace accord” had been signed. The driver who looked like an IRC (Island reconvicted criminal – terminology used to describe a rough looking individual) got out badly in need of a smoke. He had the sense to move away from his truck, took out his fags and saw a notice saying no smoking as the LTTE didn’t allow this vice, anywhere. He meekly put his cigarettes away and went back into his truck. This fellow, I would bet, a dollar gets ten, had never observed a no smoking notice in his life. The fear of what the LTTE may do to him was the deterrent, I presume.

In Aotearoa, we have just had a situation where a mob of six people have driven up in two cars and robbed a liquor store. A worker in an adjacent shop who tried to intervene has been beaten up and stabbed with a screw driver. The Bottle shop as we call them, was run by an Indian and the CCTV footage shows the perpetrators’ being mostly Pacific Islanders or Maoris. Now this demographic is from the poorer classes and of course they share an active dislike for hard working Indians, who they feel, have taken their jobs! This sort of incident is rare but any that do happen usually target Bottle shops or diaries (corner grocery shops), of course all mostly owned and run by Indians. Hopefully these idiots will be rounded up soon but there is a modicum of doubt, as the local upholders of the law have proved to be increasingly ineffectual and no match for the amount of such crimes, of late. However, the incumbent Government has strengthened the Police force, a long overdue initiative.

Of course, no Police force is infallible. Complaints of policemen using undue force and being “unreasonable” when dishing out fines and other penalties are rife. We had an excess of speeding fines during lockdown, from strategically placed mobile cameras, mostly on the way to large supermarkets, which can only be construed to be a method of meeting revenue “targets”! It was only the roads to supermarkets that had whatever little traffic there was, on those days. However, the Police in this country is largely respected as upholders of the law and mild grumbles and an occasional letter to the Editor aside they prevail.

A recent survey carried out in NZ, has found that most New Zealanders stuck to the rules during lockdown because they were worried about what their neighbours would have thought of them if they had violated the rules. There you go Lankans! How many of you protest, make a noise or even blow your horn when three-wheelers cut in and out of traffic and private bus drivers overtake on the wrong side of the road? Not to mention when someone “jumps” a queue. I know when I do is I have been frequently told that all I do in annoy the passengers in my vehicle. Is that the right attitude? How can we expect people to respect the law when those who do respect the law don’t ENFORCE their choice? The only examples available to the general populace are those openly flouting the law, those who obey the law do so silently and innocuously. How does that achieve our objectives?!!

I wonder if any of the political contenders in the Pearl has the guts to use revamping the Police Force or announce rewards for those who obey and uphold the law, as election promises. It will be one of the best things that can happen to the country. Much more beneficial that even “rice from the moon”!

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